NewsWrap for the week ending October 23, 1999 (As broadcast on This Way Out program #604, distributed 10-25-99) [Written by Cindy Friedman, with thanks to Graham Underhill, Chris Ambidge, Martin Rice, Brian Nunes, Jason Lin, Rex Wockner, Andres Duque, Eric Beauchemin, Greg Gordon & Lucia Chappelle] Anchored by Kevin Riley and Cindy Friedman Australian activists were up in arms this week at the light sentences given two men in a hate bombing. In June, two explosions at Townsville's local office of the Queensland AIDS Council resulted in minor injury to a staff member -- but even the judge admitted there had been potential for bodily harm or even death. The perpetrators, Wayne Jang and Nick Bower, told the court they attacked the site "just 'cause they're faggots." But even though both men had prior criminal records, they were each sentenced to only nine months in jail. The Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights warned that the sentence they called "outrageously lenient" "would act as encourageme nt rather than a deterrent for hate-motivated attacks against sexual minorities." That's a particular concern for Townsville, because the bombing was only one in a series of anti-gay attacks there at the AIDS Council office, at a beach cruising area, and even in a home invasion -- although police insisted there was no organized hate group involved. The Australian Council for Lesbian and Gay Rights also suggested enactment of U.S.-style hate crimes sentencing enhancements. But the United States' federal measure known as the Hate Crimes Prevention Act has been effectively killed for this year. Hopes for its passage rose in July when the full Senate approved its language as part of a package of amendments to the Commerce-State-Justice appropriations bill. But because no similar amendment was made to the House version of the spending bill, it was discussed in a House-Senate Conference Committee. This week the Republican-dominated conference committee dropped the hate crimes rider. New Hampshire Republican Senator Judd Gregg told reporters that the amendment "was one elephant too much for this boa constrictor." As the conference committee was taking up the question, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its hate crimes statistics for 1998. Despite fewer jurisdictions participating that year, reports of anti-gay hate crimes increased by 12.5%, and made up 16% of all reported hate crimes. In Britain, a major survey found that while more than half of lesbigays and transgendered people had experienced homophobic incidents, less than one in five reported them to police. Over 70% said they were afraid to report incidents, expecting either that they would not be taken seriously or that police themselves would react with homophobia. The survey was unveiled at the third national conference bringing together gay and lesbian community leaders with police from all over the U.K.. A depositions hearing was held in Wellington, New Zealand this week for two men charged in the May bashing death of a 14-year-old boy. Although it can't be said definitively that Jeff Whittington was gay, his attackers certainly believed that he was, based on his fingernail polish and effeminate manner. After suspects Jason Meads and Stephen Smith allegedly fatally punched and stomped Whittington, they returned to a party they'd attended earlier and laughed and joked about what they'd done. Yet both later expressed remorse and turned themselves in. An Irish jury this week found two men guilty in the near-fatal bashing of gay U.S. literary figure Robert Drake. Ian Monaghan and Glen Mahon will each face up to ten years in prison for the January attack on Drake in his temporary home in Sligo. Drake suffered severe head injuries that required months of hospitalization, and even after months of intensive rehabilitation back in the U.S., he still requires 24-hour care, uses a wheelchair and can speak only haltingly. But there was also happier news from Ireland this week as the nation's new Employment Equality Act went into effect, prohibiting job discrimination based on sexual orientation and eight other categories. The very broad and sophisticated law also includes Ireland's first legal definitions of workplace harassment and sexual harassment. It establishes the Equality Authority and the Director of Equality Investigations to work to prevent discrimination and to assist those who feel they've experienced it. But as Prime Minister Bertie Ahern said, "This legislation will work if people want it to work. ... We all need to accept our responsibility to make sure that it does work and brings about change and an end to discrimination." The Dail, the Irish parliament, is expected to enact this year the Equal Status Bill to prohibit discrimination in public accommodations. Similar equality legislation is underway in Northern Ireland as part of the Good Friday peace accord. Hopes for civil rights protections for lesbigays and transgendered people in Venezuela's new constitution are fading. Despite earlier rumors, they do not appear in the current draft. In addition, the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference has been actively lobbying the Constitutional Commission to argue against any provisions for legal same-gender marriages. Religious leaders have also been actively lobbying the Constitutional Commission in Zimbabwe. The Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe is looking for the new constitution not only to ban same-gender marriages, but to outlaw homosexual acts and to censor material portraying them. Zimbabwe's criminal code already includes a sodomy statute. Tensions between religious expression and civil rights for gays and lesbians will be considered in a crucial U.S. lawsuit. The full 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has agreed to rehear two Christian landlords' objections to laws banning marital status discrimination in both the city of Anchorage and the state of Alaska. In January, a 3-judge panel of the same court had decided 2 - 1 for the landlords. That decision appeared to be broad enough to effectively allow a federal religious exemption from all civil rights laws protecting gays and lesbians in the 9th Circuit's 9-state jurisdiction. Previously, the state Supreme Courts of both California and Alaska had ruled against landlords in essentially identical cases, and the U.S. Supreme Court had declined to take up appeals of either of those decisions. No date has yet been set for the appellate court's rehearing. The U.S. government has made a formal response to Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni's recent declaration that he had ordered the Criminal Investigations Division to arrest homosexuals. It is almost unheard of for the U.S. to make a formal response to anti-gay actions in other countries, but a brief official release from the State Department expressed "deep concern and consternation" at Museveni's remarks. It said, "We would view the arrest and imprisonment of persons based on their sexual orientation as a serious human rights violation... We urge the Ugandan government to ensure that none of its citizens face harassment or detention as a result of their sexual orientation." There has been no public response from Uganda to date. U.S. Secretary of State Madeline Albright does not seem to have raised any such issues this week as she visited Kenya, where President Daniel arap Moi had followed Museveni's remarks with anti-gay statements of his own. A Tokyo court has permanently banned a book containing letters detailing a gay affair of one of Japan's greatest novelists, the late bisexual Yukio Mishima. It was the nation's first judicial decision establishing that personal letters are protected by copyright, and publisher Bungei Shunju will probably appeal it. When it was released in March 1998, the book "Sword and Winter Red" caused quite a stir with its 15 previously unpublished letters from Mishima to its distinguished author Jiro Fukushima. It sold 90,000 copies in its first ten days. But then Mishima's son and daughter were able to obtain a court order not only stopping sales but requiring the recall of books already sold. The publisher was able to recover only 10,000 copies. A 14-year-old in Brazil may be expelled from school for declaring his love for an older male student. The head of the private school in Sao Paolo told reporters that the gay youth is a good boy, but his remarks have led other students to taunt the 16-year-old he admires. The 14-year-old believes he is a victim of discrimination, because heterosexual boys and girls commonly make similar expressions of their love with no such consequences. A lesbian's quest for conjugal visits during a 30-year prison term in Colombia has become the first gay issue ever heard by the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States. The U.S.-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission is one of several groups to have joined her petition. Its campaign director Sydney Levy said, "What we're trying to do, beyond the specifics of the case, is to demonstrate to the Commission that there is nothing unusual about rights for homosexuals." But the Colombian government argued that "homosexuality is incompatible with Latin culture." The case is expected to be resolved either through a settlement or a judgment by the beginning of December. And finally ... after all the razzing he took for his newsletter's insinuations about Teletubby Tinky Winky, religious right preacher Jerry Falwell is taking a step towards a more peaceful relationship with gays and lesbians. He and 200 of his followers are meeting with gay Reverend Mel White and 200 lesbigays, transgendered people, and their non-gay allies, to speak in small groups. The goal is to limit the hatefulness of the language they've used towards each other in a move against hate violence. Falwell is not about to let go of his belief that homosexual acts are sinful, nor are White and his followers going to agree with that, but they're looking to be more civil about their differences. As the White contingent converges on Falwell's home base of Lynchburg, Virginia, they're bringing donations for a food bank and planning a cleanup project there. The White group and the Falwell group are each contributing $20,000 to Habitat For Humanity to help house Lynchburg's poor. Eight groups from both sides of the fence will be present to protest, but most view the gathering as an historic step towards increasing the peace in the new millennium.